Why you should experience 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku in Tokyo, Japan.
109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku is an exacting cinema where Kabukicho's postwar entertainment heritage, Ryuichi Sakamoto's final major acoustic commission, specialized film projection and a new generation of Japanese theater design converge above the former Shinjuku Milano-za site.
Set within Tokyu Kabukicho Tower near Cine City Square and just steps from Seibu-Shinjuku Station, the eight-screen cinema extends the district's long association with film through theaters conceived around unusually rigorous sound reproduction. Sakamoto supervised SAION -SR EDITION- across all eight auditoriums, working beyond speaker selection into amplifiers, custom cables and acoustic tuning with an engineering team he trusted. His commitment to film culture also prompted the installation of a 35mm projector in Theater 8 after he asked the project team to preserve a projection format disappearing from Japanese cinemas. The result is a Kabukicho cinema where Sakamoto's pursuit of realistic sound and commitment to film projection carry the district's decades of moviegoing history into an unusually authored contemporary theater.
What you should know about 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku.
109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku is best known for Ryuichi Sakamoto's unusually comprehensive authorship of its sound environment, a collaboration that extended his work from cinema composition into the physical conditions under which films are heard. Sakamoto supervised the SAION -SR EDITION- system installed throughout the complex, refining the existing SAION concept through selected amplifiers, speakers, specialized cabling and acoustic adjustments intended to produce exceptionally natural reproduction. His contribution extended into original music for the building, including pieces used in the lounges, a pre-screening logo sequence and the chime announcing the beginning of a presentation; an unrealized proposal for a completely silent room led the project team toward using his music to prepare the audience's ears before entering an auditorium. Sakamoto also asked Tokyu Recreation to preserve 35mm exhibition, prompting the acquisition of a film projector for Theater 8 at a period when compatible Japanese cinemas had become scarce. TEXTURE DESIGN OFFICE principal Motohiro Yoshimura directed the overall cinema and theater design, and Toshiyuki Okubo of FIELD FOUR DESIGN OFFICE led the public-area concept and lobby design; Takashimaya Space Create and Tokyu Architects & Engineers joined a broader design team spanning the auditorium and public environments. Sakamoto died on March 28, 2023, shortly before audiences entered the finished cinema, turning the commission into one of his final completed projects and prompting the inaugural Ryuichi Sakamoto Premium Collection All Night screenings on April 21 and 22. The relationship has continued through annual January 17 birthday programs and successive Ryuichi Sakamoto Premium Collection editions, including screenings of his scored films, concert works and projects connected with collaborators such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Shiro Takatani. Sakamoto, Yoshimura and Okubo gave 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku a rare degree of individual creative authorship across acoustics, projection and interior design, binding the cinema directly to one of Japan's most consequential composers.
SAION -SR EDITION- makes that authorship audible through a signal chain developed around realistic reproduction, using carefully selected amplification and custom audio cables alongside the speaker system across all eight theaters. Theater 3 adds Dolby Atmos, and Theater 6 uses ScreenX to extend projected imagery from the principal screen across both side walls, shifting the auditorium from frontal presentation into a three-surface field. Theater 8 changes the medium itself through Sakamoto's requested 35mm projector, allowing photochemical prints to return to the screen through equipment acquired specifically for the cinema. Special listening programs push SAION beyond conventional movie exhibition: a 2026 session uses a professional REVOX T77 turntable connected directly to the system without intervening interface equipment, and Sakamoto's 2026 birthday program used a studio-copied submaster derived from MIDi Records' Dolby master tape of Ongaku Zukan. 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku turns projection and playback technology into part of the program itself, giving film prints, master-tape-derived audio, analog discs and contemporary multichannel cinema distinct routes through Sakamoto's acoustic design.
How to fold 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku into your trip.
109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku works as the cinema anchor for an evening tracing Kabukicho through postwar entertainment planning, mid-century theatrical performance and the district's continuing relationship with Japanese screen culture.
Begin at Cine City Square, conceived by urban planner Hideaki Ishikawa during postwar reconstruction as a social gathering place at the center of a new entertainment district. Ishikawa also proposed the Kabukicho name in 1948 after plans to attract a kabuki theater, establishing the theatrical ambition that shaped subsequent development around the square. Continue to the former site of Shinjuku Koma Theater, which opened in 1956 under the Hankyu-Toho group with a concentric triple-revolving stage and developed into a major home for enka, musicals and large-scale popular entertainment. By its thirtieth anniversary, approximately 60,000 performers had appeared before a cumulative audience of 60 million. Conclude at Godzilla Head, installed with the Shinjuku Toho Building in 2015 on the former Koma Theater site. The approximately 12-meter, 80-ton head rises about 50 meters above ground, matching the height assigned to Godzilla in Toho's 1954 original film and carrying the studio's screen history directly into Kabukicho's skyline. The progression moves from Hideaki Ishikawa's postwar entertainment plan through Shinjuku Koma Theater's rotating-stage performance into Toho's Godzilla mythology, placing 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku inside more than seven decades of Kabukicho culture built around performance and the moving image.
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